Changing school’s hearts & minds
Teen’s transgender big impact in Bronx HS
Coming out as a teen is hard, and realizing your body doesn’t match up with your gender identity is even harder.
Ethan Wesley Cepada was nominated as a Daily News Hometown Hero not because of his difficulty transitioning from a girl to a man — but because of his effort to get fellow students at his Bronx high school to accept people like him.
As a ninth-grader at Careers in Sports High School in the South Bronx, Ethan was a girl named Rosangel, “a somewhat reserved and quiet tomboy with waistlength hair who loved to play basketball,” and a good student who got along with everyone, recalled school social worker Jennifer Elliott.
But Rosangel knew something wasn’t right with her life.
“I was always depressed and having all these panic attacks,” Ethan said. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
Rosangel realized she liked girls — and after a friend came out as a female-to-male transgender person, she came to realize she was the same way.
By junior year, Rosangel had become Ethan, “with a new, short, traditionally masculine haircut and male clothes,” said Elliott.
Ethan asked that people now call him by male pronouns.
It was a tough request to make of some at the sportsoriented school, which Ethan, 17, said is more than 80% male.
He knew that some of his fellow students talked about him in a snarky way behind his back.
Ethan was active in his school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, which Elliott said combats “extreme homo/trans phobia” that she sees as “a very real part of the culture” at Careers in Sports High.
The teen got to work to change that culture. He succeeded in persuading the school to set up a genderneutral bathroom. He spearheaded workshops aimed at teaching students and staff about gay and transgender issues, and about bullying.
During one presentation, “I called out a few people without saying their names,” Ethan said.
“For those of you who love to talk a lot of bad things about me, I know who you are. I know what you say. I do have ears and I have feelings,” he recalled saying.
“I just basically told them they could talk all they wanted about me, but it’s not going to stop me from being successful,” he said. “After that presentation, no one ever said anything about me again in a bad way.”
Ethan comes from a Dominican family, and some of his relatives have had a difficult time accepting his identity.
But they are proud of his academic and social success — which got him admitted to top-ranked Ithaca College, where starting this fall he plans to study communications and design. He is the first member of his family to pursue a college degree.
“College is where Ethan is going to thrive,” said Elliott. “He’s already done a lot advancing awareness of transgender lifestyles in the Bronx.”